Virginia's Gop Can't Win In Recount For Governor

JACK W. GERMOND AND JULES WITCOVER

December 04, 1989|By JACK W. GERMOND and JULES WITCOVER Columnists

WASHINGTON — GEORGE C. WALLACE has always delighted audiences with his account of how he was recapitulated out of winning the Maryland presidential primary when he was seeking the Democratic nomination in 1968.

As Wallace tells the story, the early counts reported on television showed him leading the field until it was announced that a "recapitulation" of the returns had shown he was no longer winning.

"All I can say is," Wallace then tells his laughing listeners, "if they say they're going to recapitulate on you, watch out."

Although there was never any evidence of irregularity in the primary vote, Wallace's audiences never fail to seem to share his conviction that "they" had snookered the maverick upstart from Alabama out of something he deserved to win.

This bit of political Americana is recalled by the decision of the Republicans in Virginia to seek a recount and perhaps contest the election of Democratic Lt. Gov. L. Douglas Wilder as the state's next governor. The political risks for the Republicans are enormous - the possibility, however remote, that they might be seen as recapitulating the first black ever elected to a state governorship out of his prize.

CONSIDERING THE Republican Party's much advertised determination to break the Democratic hold on black voters, such an outcome would be bizarrely counterproductive, to say the very least.

As a practical matter, the chances appear slim. It is true that the official canvass showed that Wilder defeated Republican J. Marshall Coleman by only 6,854 votes of almost 1.8 million cast in the election Nov. 7, a margin of less than four-tenths of 1 percent of the vote and thus one slim enough to qualify for a state-financed recount. But in an election system that is almost entirely mechanized, the prospects of the recount finding enough errors to overturn that result is extremely remote. In most such cases, the recounts find only a handful of minor errors in both directions.

Coleman also has filed a notice with the legislature of his intention to contest the result, a legal step he was required to take the other day to preserve for himself the option of a challenge if serious and widespread irregularities were discovered. In fact, well-placed Republican sources say, the Coleman campaign, despite some muttering to the contrary, has no information indicating that such irregularities ever occurred.

The Republican candidate's decision to insist on the recount and the possibility of challenge is understandable. At 48, Coleman has now lost two campaigns for governor, so his career as a leading figure in Virginia politics is effectively finished unless he is rescued by the recount. And he clearly can make the good-government argument that his supporters and all the citizens of Virginia deserve the assurance that the results were accurately counted. The complaint that a recount would waste the taxpayers' money - it will cost about $120,000 - is trivial.

Similarly, the contention of the Virginia Democratic chairman, Lawrence Framme, that the Coleman challenge is an "attack on the integrity" of the state's electoral process is just so much political blather. It is fair to assume that if their positions were reversed, Wilder would be seeking a similar recount.

Indeed, the argument for Coleman pursuing the matter is good enough so that the Republican National Committee has offered technical help if that proves necessary. But the fact is that the party leaders have been willing to do so because, as one of them put it, "it's harmless . . . . If it was real, it would be dangerous."

It is equally true, nonetheless, that a situation involving a black candidate breaking a barrier, as Wilder has done, cannot be viewed realistically as just another political argument. If the result were reversed, a monumental political brouhaha would be inevitable - all at the price for the Republicans of making them appear to be the heavies with the very black voters they are trying to attract.

AND THAT WOULD BE THE CASE even if the findings of error were factually beyond any serious dispute. Wilder's remarkable accomplishment obviously has touched emotional chords in the black community that would not be easily quieted.

Chances are nothing like that will happen when the final tally is completed. The recount should be conducted sometime later this month and Wilder should be inaugurated on schedule Jan. 13. But the Republicans have taken a risk in terms of their party's image that probably isn't worth the candle. They cannot afford to recapitulate on Doug Wilder.